Poor, poor you. Such a shame for you. Such a soul-wrenching dilemma it is, having to worry yourself silly about changing costumes according to where dinner is served.
Everyone deserves dinner, of course, but not everyone is fortunate enough to get it. Why don't you chew on this instead of gnawing a hole in your sterling-lined stomach: Be grateful that you get dinner at all, let alone a dinner so fancy that it requires you to wear an expensive costume. Sob on the shoulder of the hungry man with the haunted eyes huddled in the alleyway, swathed in rags you wouldn't even deign to have your maid swish around inside your toilet. He'd gladly trade places with you. Snivel to the sleep-deprived single mom, who, despite two jobs and going without new clothes herself, can barely afford to set food before her kids, let alone shoes on their feet. Even try trotting out your complaints to someone whose straits are not quite so dire, who works an ordinary 40-hour work week, whose dinner consists of a Lean Cuisine worn while wearing yoga pants and a tank top.
If you don't like it, there's always this little thing called standing up for yourself. Get your coddled candy-ass out of the overstuffed antique chair that cost more than most people spend on an entire houseful of furniture, stand up in your shoes whose price could pay someone else's monthly rent, and say, in a modulated voice with perfect diction, "Fuck you, Mummy and Daddy. I'm having dinner in a grubby Chinatown joint, while wearing Old Navy cargo pants and a tank top, and you can't stop me." But until such time, please, please, please, take your fine whine elsewhere.
fresh-baked at 10:28 PMHow thought provoking was this post.
Though, as a Texan, I am not exposed to the concentration of wealth one finds in NYC, I know some old-monied Texans whose fortunes would dwarf most New Yorkers.
One friend of mine hosted a 4th of July party at her parents' estate while they were vacationing in Europe. Concerned that the hot Texas sun would make the pool water too warm, she arranced for an ice company to deliver three refrigerator-sized ice cubes to cool the water.
Her family's ranch is not measured in acerage, it's measured in time. "It takes about five hours to drive across the property," she says.
Still, she's trapped in the trappings.
As a non-lipstick lesbian, she's constantly having to dress, coiff and look the part of a weathy Texas heiress. She has to deny her sexual orientation and hide so much of who she is to her parents.
She envies my middle class family's openness and acceptance. She marvels at the fact that we don't have to don costumes or pretend to be straight to be around our families.
Another lesbian friend of mine was heiress to the King Ranch fortune. She balked at their restrictions and was cut off, with only a few million dollars to tide her over.
As a result, she's insane in her miserly ways.
She uses recycled magazine ads as envelopes and sends her friends bills for dinners she's hosted.
Another gay person I know- a man who inherited his father's vast oil fortune-turned out to be a raging drunk and sex addict.
The woman you wrote about is presumably straight and fits in without much effort. The dilemma of having to dress for dinner for mummy and daddy hardly seems worth the time it took her to write about it.
Sounds to me like she was bragging.
